Sabrina's Law requires anaphylaxis training for all staff in Ontario schools. What should this training look like, exactly? Who should present the training? How long is the training session?

At our school (a TDSB school in Toronto) the Principal or VP provide the training and it is very brief; no more than two minutes. They give a demonstration of an epipen and twinject, they read the signs and symptoms from a list and instruct attendees to call 911 after administering an auto-injector.

I have asked the administration if they would provide more training and they said they would -- but only to staff who want "extra" training (about 7 staff members have indicated that they would like additional training). The admin has said they would have the TDSB anaphylaxis trainer come in and do an optional lunch-n-learn -- which is fantastic. But I would like to see this as the mandatory training.

What do other Ontario schools do? What is the extent of the training provided?

I have been working with our public health nurse. In May, she spoke to the TDSB anaphylaxis trainer and he confirmed that he could come into the school in September to provide the staff training. The allergy parents were supposed to be invited to attend the training. I made all these arrangements working together with the VP mostly (although the public health nurse was involved, as was the principal and superintendent).

Over the summer we got a new VP and when school started and I asked about the training and when it would be (because I wanted to attend) and they said it had already happened.

I also witnessed the principal giving two of the lunch room supervisors "training". She didn't really seem to know what she was talking about -- she didn't even know there was a second dose in the twinject.

My son has also been excluded from a number of activities. For example, the whole class was given hot chocolate on a field trip except for my son, another dairy allergic girl, and a lactose intolerant girl. A week later the classes went for a walk to local stores and bought the children treats with major cross contamination issues (giving the kids treats that were right next to nut treats in a display case). There are a number of allergic/celiac/dietary restriction kids in these classes and nobody informed ANY of the parents that this trip was happening and that it involved food. If I had known, I easily could have provided him with some soy milk hot chocolate so that he wouldn't have been excluded. The poor boy was heartbroken.

So I think there are some awareness issues at the school too. I think that a good place to start addressing this is with proper anaphylaxis training. The TDSB apparently has a guy to do this and it baffles me -- for goodness sakes, if they have this resource available, why not use it?

Amanda
The board I work in (Barrie area) requires all staff to view a video about ana and how to use an epipen and twinject. We never actually got a try a trainer. The video is very straight forward and detailed with the steps and the signs to look for. It's about 30 min long. It's a great video but we only have to say we watched it and sign a form to say so. Really, if someone wanted to they could say they watched it and never do so. There is no test or inperson training. I don't think I actually understood everything until I had to for myself. I would have never touched one if it wasn't for having one myself. For that reason I ordered a trainer for both the epipen and twinject. I wanted to make sure I understood how to use it.

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